Category Archives: Data Insights

Post navigation

The differences between Trump and Clinton supporters extend beyond political view and into the apps that they are more likely to have installed on their smartphone. Utilizing Placed’s double opt-in audience, Placed was able to connect localized voting preferences to apps installed.

Using apps as a proxy, Clinton supporters are content generators with messaging and photo apps making up 70% of the list, while Trump supporters are more content consumers with 60% of the list including apps like NFL Mobile, Slacker Radio, Audible, Amazon Music, and Kindle. As it relates to retail, Trump supporters gravitate towards the market leaders with Walmart, the largest retailer in the US, and Amazon, the largest retailer in the US, representing 4 out of the top 10 apps.

For both candidates, the most popular businesses in the physical world by candidate preference have very little correlation with their supporters’ digital activities. This separation of offline versus online behaviors even for the same candidate highlights the importance of treating each medium in its own silo, as what works online isn’t necessarily going to work offline.

With Trump raising over $26MM in June through online and mail solicitations, it highlights digital as a strong channel to reach his strongest supporters and drive donations. Utilizing this list, Trump can focus fundraising efforts on apps where his supporters are most likely to be found. Clinton’s strength in social applications could represent an opportunity to replicate President Obama’s success in 2012 leveraging social media to drive donations.

Through a unique combination of location ratings service data and custom survey data, Placed was able to directly measure the change in visits to Chipotle during the frenzy following the restaurant’s E. coli outbreaks.

By analyzing location behaviors of consumers sourced from our Placed Insights service over a 13-month period, the data shows a drop in monthly Chipotle visitation that directly correlates with the outbreaks. Chipotle’s share in monthly traffic hit a low of 8.04% during the month of January 2016, a full three months after the first initial outbreak, representing the lowest visitor share over the 13-month period.

On February 8th, 2016, Chipotle shut down its nationwide stores to retrain staff on food safety. At the same time, the company launched a campaign to reintroduce customers to the brand with free burritos. Coupons worth a generous total of $70 million in free burritos were given away.

The “reintroduction period” with the support of millions of free burritos proved to be a promising tactic as Chipotle’s visitor share in Placed Insights for February and March show a gentle spike. More specifically, the burrito coupons pushed March 2016 visitor share to a level almost as high as that of the previous year (8.81% visitor share in March 2016 vs. 8.86% in March the year prior). Overall, the promotion had a material impact in winning back Chipotle customers.

Digging deeper into Placed Insights data reveals restaurants that benefited from Chipotle’s recent turmoil. In terms of visitor share within the Mexican restaurant category, there were a few notable beneficiaries:

Looking beyond this category, Placed compared two leaders of the “fast-casual revolution,” Chipotle and Panera Bread. Examining overlap in visitation rates through November 2015, Panera Bread visitors were more likely to visit Chipotle than vice versa. However, in December 2015, the visitation points meet, indicating a shift in traffic from Chipotle to Panera.

To add some color and tell the whole story behind the numbers, Placed surveyed its audience on their most recent visit to Chipotle to find the ways that public sentiment has changed for the brand:

46% had visited Chipotle within the last two weeks prior to their current visit

19% of respondents cited a free burrito coupon as the primary reason for their visit, while 46% said a craving for Chipotle drove their visit

70% are likely to visit Chipotle again within the next month

Over 90% are aware of the E. coli outbreaks, and among those who are aware, 79% visit about the same or more frequently since the news of the E. coli outbreak

Measuring the success of Chipotle’s strategy through free burrito coupons, Placed discovered that visitors who are less likely to frequent Chipotle due to the E. coli outbreaks are more likely to use Chipotle coupons than visitors whose visitation has increased or remained the same:

Among those who visit Chipotle less frequently due to the outbreaks, 23% used a free burrito coupon during their visit, which is 27% higher than those whose visits didn’t decrease during this time frame.

For coupon users who visit less frequently since the outbreaks, the majority said prior to this Chipotle visit, their last visit was within the last 6 months (29%) or more than 6 months ago (16%)

This group of users is also 61% likely to visit Chipotle in the next month

Chipotle’s approach to winning back customers with coupons shows signs of early success with directly measured foot traffic from Placed Insights, and perception metrics from Placed Survey.

Faced with the pressure of pushing greater sales, BMW needed to drive more potential consumers to its dealerships. However, with only 1.3% of the total Internet population comprised of Luxury Auto Intenders and Endemic Site Visitors, the pool of perspective audiences is limited.

In order to reach this niche audience, BMW sought to connect with the right geographic location; it was necessary not only to reach users who have visited BMW or competitor dealerships in recent months, but also reach users near BMW or competitor dealerships in real-time. Constrained by only 339 regional BMW Dealerships nationwide, the challenge was heightened. As a solution, Cadreon developed a programmatic strategy that leveraged data to identify the moments when the niche audience was most receptive to receiving BMW’s message.

The process of buying a car sparks emotions that can be influenced to create a connection close to the point of purchase and drive consumers into the dealerships. Using a combination of data and mobile location geo-technology, BMW was able to reach consumers on their smartphones during these moments that matter.

With the world’s largest opt-in location panel, Placed was able to measure this emotional connection. Using the Placed lookalike model based on time, geography, OS, age, gender, ethnicity, and income, Placed quantified that BMW’s approach of emotional connection drove physical action, and was able to quantify that the physical action translated into 26.5% lift in BMW dealership visits.

Placed and RetailMeNot partnered once again to deliver a study highlighting the prevalence of the omnichannel shopper. As a follow-up study to last year’s “State of Holiday Shopping,” Placed surveyed 10,843 consumers from its mobile audience to dive deeper into the impact that mobile has on couponing and the shopping planning process.

“These results highlight the need for retailers to have an omnichannel presence when it comes to offers,” said David Shim, founder and CEO, Placed. “Print is the medium in which retailers have had decades to optimize against redemption, but the greenfield opportunity exists in mobile and omnichannel coupons.”

The study quantified this greenfield opportunity:

Mobile apps have become the primary source for deal seeking: 42.8% of consumers typically use mobile to locate coupons, followed by print at 35.9%, and 28.8% across all other platforms.

Apps serve as an in-store assistant. 75.0% of consumers used at least one app to assist in their shopping experience while in-store, and 27.5% used at least three apps.

When asked about favorite and most influential shopping apps, consumers affirm the importance of delivering a high-quality omnichannel experience, which is the foundation of consumer reach today.

Amazon took the number one spot as a consumer favorite, followed by RetailMeNot and Walmart. The data highlights not only the popularity of online marketplaces, but also promotional incentives on consumers.

Top 5 Favorite/Most Influential Shopping Apps Among US Consumers

Amazon

RetailMeNot

Walmart

Groupon

eBay

Utilizing mobile deals as part of an omnichannel experience is key to converting window shopping into an in-store purchase. eMarketer found that mobile is the driving force behind coupon growth: in 2015, the number of US consumers redeeming mobile coupons reached 97.4 million, representing growth of 18.4% over the year prior.

While the study reveals that coupon use for shopping offline (70.2%) continues to exceed coupon use for shopping online (51.4%), digital coupons are quickly approaching the same redemption rate as printed coupons. 63.9% of survey respondents redeem physical/printed coupons, but 58.0% redeem digital coupons and 45.0% redeem coupon codes. Digital channels provide an additional and efficient medium for consumers to find coupons and then print them out prior to shopping, or show them on a phone while in-store.

With the omnichannel retail trend expected to grow exponentially over the next few years, the most successful retail marketers will be those who employ mobile digital coupons as a major tactic to complete the consumer’s purchase. 2015 was the year of the omnichannel shopper, but 2016 is set to be the year of the omnichannel saver and coupon user.

Black Friday has been a long-standing American pastime, one that creeps closer and closer into Thanksgiving every year. For many Americans, it is accompanied by images of people shoving and trampling each other to get their hands on the hottest discounts, giving a redefined meaning to the term “door-buster.” And, according to the NRF, nearly 102 million consumers shopped in brick-and-mortar stores over the Black Friday holiday weekend this November, where the retail advertising buildup beforehand represented a billion plus dollars.

So, the decisive question remains—who were the retail winners and losers in the ultimate annual competition of reaching those 102 million consumers effectively? Placed and Kantar came together again to merge their intelligence and evaluate the amount of incremental store visits per dollar of advertising, measuring the success through the metric of ‘lift visits per ad dollar.’ This measure was then converted to an index scale, assigning an index of 100 to the highest lift visits per ad dollar and scaling all other values against it.

This year’s analysis revealed that consumers are on the prowl for the latest and greatest electronics, particularly when it comes to Black Friday deals. Best Buy came away as the winner: with $24.2 million of ad expenditures, Best Buy experienced a 125% lift in store visits, obtaining the top efficiency index of 100. In second place behind Best Buy comes JC Penney with an efficiency index of 75, claiming the top spot for the department store and mass merchandiser category. And when it came to the battle of Walmart vs. Target, it was pretty close: Walmart experienced an efficiency index of 65, with Target on Walmart’s tail with an index of 63.